


Stars Carry On the Same

by Byacolate



Series: Bubble, Without Toil or Trouble [3]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Falling In Love, M/M, Oracle Zenyatta, Shimada Genji's Affection Erection, Witch Genji, Witches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-21
Updated: 2018-01-21
Packaged: 2019-03-07 16:09:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13438404
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Byacolate/pseuds/Byacolate
Summary: A dozen beginnings for an oracle and a witch.





	Stars Carry On the Same

**Author's Note:**

  * For [D_sel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/D_sel/gifts).



> A commission for the very sweet d-sel who wanted Genji and Zenyatta's backstory from this silly little au. I hope you enjoy! Angelic scoobertdoobert was kind enough to beta for me during the process.

They met in the spring. Genji remembers it well: wet days, cool nights. The oracle Tekhartha was something of a local legend, a magnet for arcane wares. For Genji, these antiques meant money was sure to follow, which served as a primary motive for uprooting himself from the beloved bright lights of the city. 

 

Hanzo needed a change of scenery, and Genji needed a new source for his blog, so they moved together away from the city. With a few emails exchanged between Genji and the mysterious Tekhartha, the stay promised to be a short one. Short, dull, and - first and foremost - lucrative.

 

In Genji’s defense, he’d never claimed the ability to see the future. 

 

They had met by… well, ‘appointment’ was a word he had never heard Zenyatta speak. Zenyatta proved very early on to be a man to whom a ‘meeting’ meant ‘a chance happening upon two souls’ and a much younger Genji would have had something scornful to say about it. The Genji who had only met Zenyatta through a screen thought: Ah. An eccentric. I wonder how far he is into his twilight years. Maybe he has a beard that reaches his chest. Maybe he keeps birds.

 

To his surprise in spring, after a series of emails, a move to the rural countryside, and a breakfast of plain rice and cold pizza, Genji had found himself upon the step of a modest cottage. Triple checked the address. Looked around the front of the property for any sign that this was really and truly the home of an esteemed fortune teller. The only answer he was granted was a cheery windbell hanging from an open window. 

 

What a shame that he’d left his familiar at home. She loved windbells. 

 

Genji had taken a breath, pursed his lips, and knocked on the front door. And when it opened, where he had anticipated a stooped and aged man of seventy with a weathered face and gnarled hands stood -

 

Stood a young man, taller than Genji by far. No beard - not a single hair on his chin or his head, but his eyelashes - 

 

And his warm brown eyes -

 

And his tattoos -

 

And his smile -

 

“Welcome, Shimada Genji,” Zenyatta had said, and Genji has always wondered if he knew then what they would become.

 

Tekhartha Zenyatta was more than an oracle, or a circumstantial collector of magical artifacts. Over time, Genji had come to turn page after page of the open book that was Zenyatta. He had been raised by monks in a Nepali monastery; he had traveled the world with his elder brother, and in so doing had become proficient in a number of languages (including Japanese, which they had settled into with near immediacy); he had been an exceptionally bright child, and although his passion lay in humanitarianism, his talent in the field of robotics had led to a brief stint in a scholarship program at a university for robotics engineering. But tinkering had only ever been a hobby, and his interests had led him elsewhere at the tender age of nineteen. 

 

And… Twenty. Tekhartha Zenyatta, the oracle, multilingual, monk, and college dropout was twenty years old in the spring where they met. Genji, the runaway blogger, must have seemed so… old and unachieved in comparison. 

 

Yet somehow, a great friendship had blossomed between them as a cup of blooming flower tea, each layer yielding beauty and color ever greater. And interlaced with that friendship, beyond the professional and the platonic, something else began to grow. 

 

They worked well together - Zenyatta would offer Genji artifacts to appraise for his blog, and there were many. There were a great many reasons people would leave their arcane goods with Zenyatta. Some out of fear, some deference, some to test Zenyatta’s skill, and some to offer as payment. He had no space or use for many, and so they fell into Genji’s hands. With Zenyatta’s name attached, Genji’s view count steadily began to grow. Truthfully, it often felt as though Genji was the only one benefiting from their partnership.

 

Perhaps before, he wouldn’t have minded it. Who could complain about such a thing? But something about it didn’t sit right with him, and so Genji had begun helping out around the cottage in the woods. He would bring his familiar and spend entire days organizing knick-knacks, storing up on cloth for Zenyatta’s blessed dolls, tending to his prayer flags and keeping his cupboards full. Zenyatta, he figured, must have been rubbing off on him. 

 

Zenyatta could have stood to do a little more rubbing off in general.

 

Genji… was never terribly shy about his attraction toward Zenyatta. It was the dangerous sort of attraction, too - the sort that lingered in the mind and body when left to stew, interwoven with friendship and fond admiration. It was an attraction that grew through spring and into summer, with every day that he spent learning more and more about Tekhartha Zenyatta. 

 

It was an attraction that grew briars when mirrored by starry-eyed wanderers who freely touched Zenyatta’s hands when they asked for his guidance. When wealthy patrons - wealthier than Genji now, but not nearly so wealthy as he had once been - drank in the dark dip of his throat called between his collar bones.

 

Genji wondered, and wonders still, whether his jealousy then stemmed from an unspoken claim, or from an envy of their boldness. Genji had always been audacious in the way of expressing attraction, but somehow complete strangers were able to exude their intentions in a way Genji was still gearing up to. 

 

Summer had made way for autumn, with an energizing bite in the air that had always made Genji restless. And one day, slow in wayward souls, Zenyatta had approached him where he sat at the little kitchen table. Genji had looked up from his laptop, automatically shooing his familiar away when she sought to take advantage of his distraction and dip her head into his mug of chiya.

 

He'd changed clothes. A holiday sweater covered in garish shapes of half a dozen clashing colors reached his navel and no further. If he hadn't been wearing an undershirt, it would have revealed an enticing swath of flesh.

 

“What do you think?” he'd asked, tugging fruitlessly at the hem. “It was a gift.”

 

“Hmm.” With great care, Genji had looked Zenyatta up and down a second time as he sipped his chiya. “It could stand to be a little shorter.”

 

“Shorter?” Zenyatta dipped his pelvis out in such a way that he could better observe the questionable hem line and rattle Genji’s attention all at once.

 

“Yeah. Shorter. Maybe a little tighter.”

 

Zenyatta passed a hand thoughtfully over his chest, and Genji’s familiar made another pass at his chiya. That time, she was successful.

 

Two chilly days had passed before Genji, upon entering Zenyatta’s cottage and slipping out of his shoes, was greeted in the kitchen by the spiced scent of Nepali tea and -

 

“Here. I found this for you.”

 

Zenyatta had smiled up at him from the kitchen table, a cup in one hand and a bundle of cloth in the other. Genji’s familiar perked up where she was curled around his shoulders, giving their mutual interest away. GenjI had taken the gift and unfolded it to find that it was a sweater, just as hideous as Zenyatta’s, and far, far shorter. 

 

“Do you like it?” Zenyatta sipped at his tea, an unreadable expression on his face when Genji tried to read him. “I took your advice, and modified it to your tastes. Now we can match.”

 

“That's…”

 

While he struggled for words, a sparkle in Zenyatta's eyes stopped him dead. Mirth.

 

“You're - this is a joke.”

 

“Oh?” Zenyatta's lips curled at the rim of his mug. “Is it a good one?”

 

Never one to be bested in the art of teasing, Genji scooped up his dragon and deposited her in Zenyatta's lap. “Why don't we find out?”

 

There in the kitchen, he'd pulled himself free of his sweater and t-shirt, half naked in mid-autumn, just to prove a point. After that things became sort of a blur, if a blur could be blood-hot and hyper-focused in Genji's memory. He'd modeled the ugly crop top sweater. He'd noted the tightness, how snug it was across his shoulders, his chest, his arms. And when Zenyatta seemed at a loss for words, so focused on these accentuations, Genji had finally taken the initiative.

 

He can't recall his exact turn of phrase as he'd bent over Zenyatta’s chair, one hand gripping the backrest, feeling far braver and less foolhardy than he ought. But he knows he'd asked for a kiss. And he knows permission was granted. And in the end, that had been all that mattered.

 

They kissed a lot. And they continued to kiss through the next few weeks, between blog articles and clientele and cups of hot tea. Once or twice, the kissing became a potential for something greater when they ended the day with a few small glasses of raksi. It works like tequila in Genji’s system, and it makes his limbs bold. 

 

With raksi in his blood, kissing becomes half crawling into Zenyatta’s lap at the table, breathing in the heady scent of incense forever suffused through all his clothing as his mouth makes short work of Zenyatta’s throat. 

 

But though raksi makes him bold, it makes Zenyatta cautious, and Genji never gets farther than his quality time with the heat of Zenyatta’s throat. It was true then, and it remains true now. Zenyatta would curl a hand through the hair at the nape of Genji’s neck and kiss his temple with dry lips before easing him away. Genji has never been offended - never so far gone that he doesn’t know how to mind himself.

 

The satisfaction of the dark blossom on that pretty neck that lasts all through the following days always did wonders for Genji’s spirits. And nothing in the world suited him more darkly than when he saw recognition register on the faces of those who fell at Zenyatta’s feet.

 

The day was cold when Genji and Zenyatta finally took their twining threads to bed. The sky was dark, and the air was sharp. The forecast had called for no more than clouds, but Zenyatta had greeted Genji on the porch in his robes and a scarf, chiya cupped between his long fingers. Steam had risen from the mug and Zenyatta watched Genji through the veil of its mist. 

 

Genji had leaned forward to tear it, pressing his mouth to Zenyatta’s. “Is something wrong?”

 

“It will snow today,” Zenyatta had said in a voice thick with fortune, his lips warm despite the weather. Though the forecast said otherwise, Genji knows better than to doubt his premonitions. “It will snow and encompass this place. I turned away several calls. It will not be safe for travel today.”

 

“Are you here to send me home?” Genji had asked, crowding a little against Zenyatta. His familiar slithers down further into his coat, buried against his belly for warmth. 

 

The steam between them and Zenyatta’s breath were one and the same. 

 

“I only thought to tell you. You may wish to turn back.”

 

A biting wind slid its icy fingers through Genji’s hair, changing his grin to a grimace. “Where would I rather be than here?”

 

Zenyatta, then, had smiled and led Genji into his home where they had little to occupy themselves but each other’s company. The conversation was light, pleasant, not yet submersed in the depths of philosophy. Genji remembers wondering aloud if he should return home for some clothes. 

 

“Would that make this sleepover a little less circumstantial?” he’d pondered, wincing at the prick of his familiar’s claws around his neck. It wasn’t even snowing yet, but...

 

“I admire your healthy appreciation for spontaneity,” Zenyatta hummed, peeling a pair of tangerines. “You can borrow some of mine.”

 

“Some of yours?” Zenyatta’s frame is longer than Genji’s, and Genji is wider in the shoulder, his arms a little thicker, but Zenyatta prefers loose clothing anyway. “I will feel like a king.”

 

Zenyatta looked down at his mustard yellow trousers, worn from time and use. “The beauty of this world is borne from all manner of unique perspectives.” 

 

The rest of the morning had been filled with chatter from the mundane to the arcane, in between ineffectual bouts of work. They puttered back and forth from the living room to the kitchen, watching the first fluttering flakes beginning to fall. Genji had phoned Hanzo before dinner preparation, and during he and Zenyatta had… well.

 

Bumped shoulders. Knocked hands. Feeling exceptionally bold, Genji had held a slice of apple to Zenyatta's lips. 

 

Then, he'd tasted so sweet when Genji kissed him.

 

Then, he'd sighed so prettily when Genji crowded him against the countertop.

 

Then, he’d melted into Genji when he took him to bed. 

 

The world was dark blue and blankets of white when Genji finally slipped into Zenyatta’s sheets, and the deepest black when he’d slipped into Zenyatta. 

 

_ “Genji,” _ Zenyatta had gasped, his long arms wound around Genji’s shoulders, pulling him in tight. Genji, who wanted nothing more than to be closer even though he was already deep inside, held Zenyatta like a lifeline. It was slow, cradling Zenyatta and being cradled and pressing into him again, and again, so slowly he thought he’d go mad and take Zenyatta with him.

 

When they lay feverish and still under the blankets, Genji swathed entirely in Zenyatta’s embrace, warm lips had touched his temple. 

 

“I had hoped you would stay,” he’d admitted into the gentle dark. Nestled into the crook of his neck, Genji had taken to cataloguing the texture of Zenyatta’s ribs. 

 

“Hm? Didn’t you know that I would?”

 

“I see not one future, but many, and each requires so many moving parts.” This is speech Genji knows well. He’s heard it often enough. Zenyatta gathered him a little closer. “I saw many futures this morning. I am… overjoyed that this one came to fruition.”

 

Genji had rolled himself over until he lay beside Zenyatta, not atop him, and slid one leg through his to tangle. “You know… sometimes, you can be the moving parts. You don’t need to wait and hope that I will follow the paths to lead us to - to where we both want to be.”

 

“I wanted you to stay because it was your desire, not because I asked.”

 

“But I would stay.” Genji touched his spine. “If you asked.”

 

And Zenyatta smiled against the crown of his head. “Yes. I know that too.”

 

It was two days before the snowfall ended, and two more before the roads were safe to travel again. For Genji and Zenyatta, this had meant four days of making up for lost time.

 

When Zenyatta's next clients had first seen the wreck that was Zenyatta's neck and the languid nature of his posture, a draconic satisfaction stretched and curled in Genji's gut.

 

It was another month before Genji finally signed over his half of the lease to Hanzo. It was up for renewal anyway, and Hanzo was getting pretty cozy with his job at the local library and looking to downsize. By some funny twist of fate, consolidating their entire lives had proved to be therapeutic for the both of them.

 

Hanzo hadn’t even batted an eye. “It’s about time,” he’d muttered, stirring his natto into a bowl of rice. 

 

“About time?” Genji had looked up toward the kitchenette from his box of neatly packed video games in the living room. Hanzo met his gaze evenly. “I thought you’d turn into an old man when I told you. ‘You’re being rash, Genji. You’ve only known him for six months, Genji. It is impossible for one young man to be so full of charisma and grace  _ and _ make excellent decisions, Genji. You’re too powerful, Genji.’” 

 

“You were wasting money, going back and forth from that house every day, Genji,” Hanzo intones, taking a bite before pointing his chopsticks in Genji’s direction. “If you take that game, you will buy me a new one. You know I haven’t finished it yet.”

 

And then, after Genji had groused his way online to, in fact, purchase a second copy of the game, Hanzo had offered a more resolute blessing. 

 

He had met Zenyatta several times over the course of his friendship with Genji. They hadn't even met on Genji's terms; Zenyatta liked the smell of books old and new. They'd met in the library one afternoon in spring, and Zenyatta had recognized him right away. Since then, they'd all had coffee together occasionally in between library visits and chance meetings at the apartment. Hanzo had never asked for a reading of his own future, so Zenyatta had never given one.

 

But Hanzo had one for Genji. He'd given it when Genji was packing for his move into Zenyatta's cottage, and he'd given it again the following spring on a fraternal night out.

 

“Why don't you marry that man instead of dragging me through every inch of your…  _ feelings  _ about it.”

 

Months of back and forth deliberation on the matter do nothing to quell Genji’s zealous groan. His familiar tussles with both of Hanzo’s between shot glasses of soju and Genji’s bottles of beer.

 

“Hasn’t it been too - don’t you think I want to?” Genji’s always been a little sloppy when he drinks. Most people tell him it’s endearing. Hanzo has never seemed terribly endeared. Genji props himself up on an elbow, cheek mushed into his palm as he reaches out to rub the whiskers of the first dragon he can catch. The little blue thing gives him a look of warning even as it tips its face into his touch. Genji can’t help himself but laugh a little dopily. 

 

“You are as impulsive now as you ever were. I fail to see the problem.”

 

Genji drops his amusement for a churlish pout. “What do you mean you don’t see -”

 

“You live with him. You are both so entwined in your business practices that you must be sharing finances. And you refuse to stop talking about him.” Hanzo leans back in his seat, carefully tipping the ceramic sake bottle toward his cup. “I do not see the issue. Unless... it is cowardice?”

 

“Of course I'm gonna ask him. One day. It's just… He probably already knows everything. How I'm gonna do it.” Genji fiddles worth an empty shot glass when Hanzo's familiar wriggles out of his grasp. “In every possible future.”

 

Hanzo snorts. “Then it is simple, and you  _ are _ a coward.”

 

“Maybe.” Genji sighs and slumps against the table. “Then why… why wouldn't he have mentioned it before?”

“Hmph. Maybe he sees a future where you are too afraid, and that stays his hand too.”

 

That… does sounds like Zenyatta. 

 

“Am I a fool? That's rhetorical.” Forehead pressed to the sticky edge of the table, Genji pulls out his phone. “I ought to call him. Ask him right now.”

 

“Have you no finesse? Fool. He may see it coming, but you could stand to make it  _ memorable.” _

 

But it isn't memorable. Not in the traditional use of the word. Genji makes it home to the sound of cicadas, a sure sign that summer has dug its meaty fingers into spring. Genji pays the taxi driver and sends him on his way, patting the familiar dozing around his neck. 

 

After a moment of fiddling with his keys and a muttered charm, he opens the door without a sound. Zenyatta may be sleeping.

 

Except he isn't sleeping. And neither is Mondatta, both of whom watch Genji as he freezes in the doorway. He feels caught. He didn't know why he feels caught. 

 

“Good evening, Genji.”

 

He doesn't know why Mondatta is so intimidating. He's the enigmatic leader of a monastic order, and he radiates the purest aura Genji had ever seen. He's also Zenyatta's beloved brother, and Genji feels a little like a stain in a room otherwise glowing with perfection when Mondatta is around. He worries Mondatta can see it too.

 

Maybe he's so intimidating because no two in the world but Zenyatta's lover and his brother could know how sincerely Genji does not deserve him.

 

“Good evening,” Genji responds, falling back to the polite Japanese of his youth. With all the alcohol in his system, he doesn't quite manage to stop himself in time before bowing a little. The aborted motion must look as awkward as it feels, and Zenyatta comes to the rescue.

 

“You look flushed,” he says, smiling at Genji from the sofa by his brother. “The shower is free.”

 

“Yeah? Ah, I’ll…” He pulls his familiar from his shoulders and Zenyatta takes her when Genji passes. 

 

“I was about to turn in for the night. Brother, your room is prepared -”

 

Genji escapes into the bathroom, feeling like a coward. He feels flayed open, bisected and on display when Mondatta comes to visit. Two oracles under one roof is his daunting reality.

 

But by the time he scrubs up and pokes his head back into the living room, it's empty save for his familiar stretched out over the sofa. He leaves her to it, heavily considering casting a silencing charm on his feet before sucking up his courage and slipping into the bedroom he shares with Zenyatta. 

There's something about the way Zenyatta sits in their bed that always sends Genji's heart aflutter. Somehow he is both ethereal and the very essence of grounded, surrounded by warm lamplight and dark cotton sheets. When he looks up at Genji from his book, the glowing ink on his forehead fades. 

 

He closes the book with a smile. “Are you feeling better?”

 

With Zenyatta, he feels at peace. Happy, content. A unique necessary cog in the great machine of life. 

 

Zenyatta fits him perfectly when Genji climbs into bed, pulling him down between the sheets. 

 

Something in the way Zenyatta's fingers dance over his temple tells Genji all he needs to know.

 

“Did you see what Hanzo…?”

 

Zenyatta hums: “I did not intend to pry. These visions come to me without warning, sometimes.” Genji closes his eyes and Zenyatta sweeps a thumb over his eyelashes. “Would it amuse you to know that Mondatta spent our evening pestering me just so?”

 

Genji's eyes flutter open. He looks up from Zenyatta's chest. “Really?”

 

“Nearly verbatim.”

 

That is amusing. Genji presses his smile to Zenyatta’s chest. His stomach lurches only momentarily when he realizes that Mondatta absolutely, definitely saw the dark bruises up and down Zenyatta’s neck. 

 

“So…” 

 

“So.” 

 

Genji feels Zenyatta’s heart beating under his cheek. This is the place he ought to be. This is the place he ought to stay. It always rubs him the wrong way when Hanzo is… _ right.  _

 

“So,” Genji repeats, sitting up on his elbow. The eyes that gaze up at him are dark and full of love. He knows that his reflect the same. “How do  _ you _ feel about it?”

 

“Would I marry you?” Zenyatta’s palms slide up Genji’s shoulders and his neck to cup his jaw. 

 

“Yeah. Would you?”

 

“If you asked?” 

 

Genji swallows, the butterflies in his ribcage stirring up hurricanes. “If I asked.”

 

They met in the spring, and Genji remembers it well. Genji remembers the moment that they met, and all the moments in between. He remembers the first time he ever made Zenyatta laugh, and he remembers the way his sigh tasted when they shared their first kiss. He remembers the warmth that filled him the very first time their fingers touched. But he’s not afraid to let them fade a little in his memory because they have all the time in the world. He and Zenyatta, they’ll have forever. 

 

“If you asked,” Zenyatta murmurs in the air between them in late spring, one year and a month after they first met, “I would say yes.”

 

Genji wonders if he’d always  _ known. _ But it doesn’t matter. They both know now.

 

“Hey, Zenyatta. There’s something I’ve been meaning to ask...”

**Author's Note:**

> I'm writing a high fantasy comic about a wandering bard! [Check it out from the beginning HERE!](https://bardbouquet.tumblr.com/post/179195348759/a-dwarven-heirloom-a-blade-in-the-dark-and-a)
> 
> Inquire about fic reque$t$ [here!](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/ask)  
> Tumblr: [wardencommando](http://wardencommando.tumblr.com/).  
> Battle.net ID: byacolate#1589


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